Recent law reform initiatives on sexual crimes against
children in Turkey reveal the growing danger for women and girls, and the need to
interrogate the myths and biases underlying the “our culture” discourse.

oD 50.50 Editorial highlights 2015

The largest survey on women living with HIV, commissioned by
the World Health Organisation, has revealed the stark truth about the gender-based violence and mental health challenges that positive women face.

Throughout Southeast Asia, hundreds of women environmental activists have been jailed, attacked and defamed as threats to "national security". They remain without adequate resources, protection and funding for their work.

The EU Victims Directive comes into force this month. Will
it prevent the further decimation of Black and minority ethnic organisations offering specialised services to women facing violence in the UK?

The quality of service in the independent women's sector is no guarantee against the future as the British government continues its assault on specialist women’s services protecting women from violence.

Nineteen-year-old Elona
Kastrati became internet-famous overnight, after she hung sanitary pads covered
in feminist statements in a German city centre on International
Women’s Day. Then she moved to her parents’ homeland – Kosovo.

Feminists have long
critiqued the fashion industry, which has often responded by – at best – co-opting
feminism as a ‘brand’ in order to sell products. Can the two ever genuinely
engage with each other?

Key issues that remain unresolved within the Women, Peace, and Security agenda include: the
nature of gender, the advisability of including counter terrorism efforts, and
generational gaps within the movement.

UN Security Council resolution 2242 passed with overwhelming support. but effective implementation was immediately called into question when the Russian
Ambassador then spoke out against the resolution’s key provisions.

China's one-child policy fundamentally changed the most intimate aspects of Chinese lives. It's removal last month may have been more welcome if structural forces did not remain that continue to stifle the ability of individuals and families to build lives of their own choosing.

Mitrovica’s bridge as ‘symbol’ helps obscure the
forces of elite manipulation and institutions of power in constructing Balkan
nationalisms, and falsely presents inter-communal tensions in Kosovo as
inevitable.

The Turkish HDP's egalitarian gender ideology played a key role in the election of a record number of women to parliament in June's election. Can these gains be sustained in the political turmoil ahead?

The British
government's programme to counter violent extremism hands
religious fundamentalists the gift of a narrative of victimhood, narrowing the political space for secular feminists and others
to challenge fundamentalism.